Margaret Carlson was named in 1994 the first woman columnist in TIME's history. She writes primarily about policy and politics and is a regular panelist on CNN's Capital Gang.

Thanks, but Hillary Doesn't Want Your Sympathy

By Margaret Carlson

Last Friday, Hillary Clinton walked out to the White House lawn
and celebrated her husband's 52nd birthday as if it were his
fifth and he deserved a pony and a trip to Disneyland. Joking
about how old he was getting, she led more than 100 staff members
in a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday.

How does she do it and, more intriguingly, why, when the only
reasonable reaction to the pain her husband has caused her is to
take that spice cake with the buttercream frosting and plant it
in his face? At the very moment she was being Harriet to his
Ozzie at the garden party, aides were inside considering just how
much the President would have to say to satisfy calls for his
head and yet preserve some semblance of dignity for his wife and
child.

People think it takes so much out of Hillary Clinton to play the
loyal wife that anyone who thinks she might also be a loving one
is dismissed as a gullible dupe. To many viewers, Hillary's
full-throated defense on the Today show in January, in which she
blamed her husband's enemies for the scandal, was pure spinning
for her man. But it was easy for her to believe that the same
amalgam of right-wing moneymen, zealots and Clinton haters who
had launched investigations into (and made movies about) whether
Vince Foster was murdered could be behind a starstruck groupie
suddenly in the clutches of both Ken Starr and Paula Jones'
lawyers. Certainly, if she believed the charges against her
husband, the lawyer in her would never, ever have conceded to
Matt Lauer that an "adulterous liaison" with an intern, "if
proven true, would be a very serious offense."

Whatever her suspicions over these past few months, she did not
have any need to hear the whole truth from her husband until the
reality of his testifying in front of Starr sank in last week.
Anyone who saw her emerge from Marine One last Thursday, after a
ceremony for the Americans killed in the embassy bombings in
Africa, wondered if some of the agony on her face wasn't for the
ordeal ahead. Ever since Chelsea was six, Hillary has protected
her daughter by convincing her that some of her father's
political opponents would smear him to beat him. This week one of
those opponents would be sitting in the Map Room, two floors
below Chelsea's bedroom, learning from Clinton himself that some
of the smearing might in fact be true.

As this drama has unfolded, the admiration that eluded the First
Lady for years is now hers, as she climbs to a 60% approval
rating. Two weeks ago, when she and Chelsea and some friends
walked into a Washington restaurant for dinner, first one diner
and then others stood and applauded, until the whole room was
cheering. Her husband would have worked the tables, but she took
her seat. For the disciplined and private Methodist, the brainy
lawyer from Yale who hasn't asked for sympathy, having people
feel sorry for her is just one more indignity to bear. --By
Margaret Carlson